donovan brothers what's the crack
i watched january you're rowing and you
were magnificent you ticked all the
boxes of being humble generous and good
at what you do
hey will you stop walking so loud we're
filming here for sake
shut up we're filming
what are these boys like how much you
bring like to back arsenal oren roaring
was a bad choice couldn't really pick
the warmer sport they really do think
that there's a secret or we're doing
some special training program and we
won't tell anyone we'd hear stories what
kind of crazy things we do pick up the
sheep
put them on their back
run up and down the hill
we drained x-men is stupid and don't
give away anything else
so junior athletes to take the lambs
[Music]
this is a small town there and two
thousand people are so gary's fixing his
hair there
the washing machine
nearly everybody knows everybody
anyone else for a cup of tea
the first time i've ever gone to london
i couldn't get over people weren't
saying hello to each other on the
footpaths thought is very different yeah
down in the southern part of the country
we're used to the fresh air and the
birds and we're not used to buildings
[Music]
i should roll off our heads as well too
we're not with civilization at all half
the time i might say but uh we're
happier that's right it is a good way to
be
it's a great mask isn't it that's sean's
shop there sean is a guest man all
together yeah he is the world record for
the most braze opened in a minute is it
three
two
one
[Music]
steve rodman's great guy he was the
first person in history to complete the
ocean sevens
there's that kind of
ethos here i suppose you see it in the
rowing club as well
we don't have a lot but i think we've a
lot to prove you know we kind of always
seem to be the underdogs
cambridge crew takes to the river thames
for their 110th meeting with oxford it's
a gloomy english day
the world around that i know it is an
elite sport the cambridges and the
oxfords of this world so the elite
colleges
they've got a lot of funding they've got
a lot of paid coaches
we don't really have that
[Music]
welcome to skipper and drawing club yeah
inside the front door
to fix the windows
doors together there with your
facilities little tips
it does the job
yeah we've got a river running out the
back of the house yeah which is useful
for the rowing
coming to the kitchen back here then
that doesn't work at all but it's a
dishwasher that
is used for putting foiling cabinets on
top of
a bag of socks there
point piece of paper that's on a string
put it legal
like that
do all training programs over the years
like this one is up here the endurance
program but that's top secret you're not
alone produce that don't show anyone
most of the equipment here is handmade
you don't need anything fancy there's no
one thing that says oh you have to have
money or you have to have this facility
or deficitly
we make the what we have here one
brings us to batteries
okay we never had money we had no money
we just had enough funds to buy scrap
metal
to make weights for our way through
[Applause]
yeah
if the bearing binding you're only
pretending
our rolling gears
it's an expensive bit of kit we've got
red tape we improvised but it works
dominick is coaching us he's a volunteer
he's there in the morning come down from
work had his lunchtime break straight
after work again
he just thinks about rowing all the time
i think
right in front of us the list of
national championship winners on a big
huge gold board that's type of delegate
really no one's won more national
championships than skippery we have had
lots of success in the club but there's
something special about an electric
medal
you know no rower from the whole of
ireland had ever won an olympic growing
medal
we needed some very special homegrown
talent so what gary and paul like when
they were kids
so
help me on this one
they were mad they were worried they
were body bites
there were live wires live wires they
were always scheming something
sound leads great boys
they're destined for something yeah
special
because we're so close to asia we're
brothers we're always fighting and
beating the crap out of each other so we
got kind of a bad rip yeah bad drift
we were quite competitive with each
other so we wanted to be racing each
other and dad said we'd go wrong we're
like drawing what's that we'll do it and
a bit of stupidity helped as well thanks
peter god they got into rowing because
if they didn't i don't know what else
they'd be at
just fell in overdrawing to be honest we
realized we'd less energy for for
fighting and missing and stuff
gary hit me in an argument over the
heater upstairs here one day and
gave me a clock into the head
and um
he hurt his hand
so they put me over the board for a few
days he couldn't train for a week
we realized if we were hurting ourselves
and each other then we weren't going to
get faster
and so we started in working with our
coach dominic he's great that's great
yeah he's a lunatic you know he loves
rowing oh well when i'm just suddenly
leaving there i just told him how to do
basically the distance say the
kilometers i suppose one he was the
accent like just did it where to go
today basically like he's talking in
chords well really it's windy stuff you
would talk to them really you talked to
through the stuff you would say look you
know we're working on the technique it
adds to the mystery of skibbereen wrong
club like yeah
no one knows what the courts are saying
except ourselves
we're like family really the way we've
been carrying on some of the times he's
very receptive of us giving him
criticism as well as free gray someday
and tell him his coaching is crap
then he listens to that
gary is always doing more looking for
the phone and the banter and i was a bit
more serious if the two of us were like
me we could have just trained so hard
that we get sick and tired of it and if
we were like gary we might have trained
hard enough all the time but the
combination of the two of us it worked
out it just kind of naturally progressed
we were quite successful domestically
started doing really well
internationally you'd see them on the
river you'd see pictures in the local
paper but don't know did everybody think
they were going to be in the olympics
[Music]
over the couple years we've been getting
better and better and better and we both
had the dream of going to olympics and
taking a middle
[Music]
year 2015 as the olympic qualifier came
closer and closer everyone thought geez
these leds are going to have a goal
qualifying the top 11 boats qualified
we came relevant like
we made it by a quarter of a second we
beat the poor old greeks
we had to figure out how to go from
being unsuccessful to being successful
but then we put a bit of thought into it
and we figured if we do more training we
might go faster
everyone has the same rolling boats
same number of arms same number of legs
and they don't have water to all of
water to rewind
what are the walls your rolling club are
insulated or they're just blocks like
here
you still have to do eight thousand
kilometers a year
it's the execution of the training
program
the intent when you come in every day
yeah but i'm at the minute now if
i can pull up the hours
we knew we had the confidence that we
were going to go as fast as we could we
didn't know where we're going to come
first or fifth or sixth
or wherever we might as well give it the
very best shot
[Music]
or race day nobody slept the night
before or that day
we opened up early
we had our rosary beads out everybody
prayed for them and that they'd come
back okay
that they'd come back safe
two boys who had grown up in our club
were now on the telly in rio you know
competing at the biggest event
something that
nobody in ireland had ever achieved
the whole town turned
falling
flags flags flags every eye of every
person in the library was fixed on the
computer you could have heard a pin drop
and now the donovan brothers from
skivereen it's their opportunity to take
on the best in the world we couldn't
call it
we knew they had a chance we knew that
when they got to the final
we knew that they had a chance
if they got a medal
that would be just that would be amazing
it's our first lightweight double in an
olympic final
so lane won
ireland the first two strokes we did
were poor enough from the third stroke
and then i'd say they were as good as
they could be 500 meters the irish
staying the pace we could see that we
were still in touch with the guys that
used to be a good bit ahead of us the
irish looking very very strong very very
composed gary donovan i cried maybe
about the thousand meters just the pride
i suppose
after 1 000 meters there is nothing to
choose between any of those crews you
think oh my goodness this is it what
happens next is you know in the hands of
the gods they are still very much in
contention three quarters away and then
made a bit of a push for leave they're
gonna cause a threat a real threat to
the french of the french arena race
to the moment it's france in first place
ireland in the silver medal position
challenging for gold four bots in line
and i was like brent go go go
[Applause]
it was such a big deal and that was
exciting like
it made it so much greater than just
wrong it made it something for everybody
old people who couldn't walk got into
wheelchairs and got into zimmer friends
just to go out to see them like
better than the pope
don't make us proud to say that we're
from ireland work in the car work from
the price car most importantly we're
from ski marine
people are saying
what's the secret in skippering what are
you doing or what's in the water no i
can't tell you no no that's the secret
[Music]
if we ever did need anything in some way
there's always going to be someone there
to help even if it is just to make a few
sandwiches at a regatta or for whatever
reason we couldn't pay the electricity
bills people are always willing to give
i did well with the meringues i sold
them to three nice boys
you know a lot of people in a lot of
clubs and a lot of communities can learn
a lot from what skibbereen has done
[Music]
people are excited for more they're
wheeling on the athletes the youngsters
and there's fierce excitement
the biggest thing is belief any
youngster walked in the door to running
club tomorrow morning said i want to go
to the olympics no one would ever doubt
them
ever
[Music]
this is a small town there and two
thousand people are so gary is here